To Shelter

To Shelter, Biggar, 2012

University of Strathclyde

The initial Project within Year 1 of the Course challenges the students to consider the notion of “Shelter”. The brief does not prescribe what we may be sheltering from, preferring to evoke individual reactions from the students.

There was an overriding theme this year of salvaged and recycled materials, developed through discussions with the team at Wiston Lodge who remain eager to use and reuse the structures gifted to them by the Department. Our collaboration has developed, allowing the structures built on site to become intrinsic elements of the learning process, with the staff from the Lodge now having a direct input into materials used, site locations and the selection of designs. Working entirely in physical modelling, the students produced a series of initial responses which, through a process of design development were submitted for final selection. Through discussion and debate, ten designs were selected to be constructed full scale as part of the Live Build exercise.

With a modest budget, the students investigated construction techniques and materiality before pre fabricating elements within the Department of Architecture Workshop. The ten shelters were then transported to Wiston estate. Thereafter sites were identified and the Live Build took place over two days.